Social Media and Body Image: Does Social Media Have A Negative Impact On Body Image?

Over the years, much has been said about how conventional media portrays unattainable beauty standards through photoshopped celebrities or underweight fashion models. It's so easy to think that social media, too, is all bad when it comes to body image now that so many influencers dominate our feeds.

Social media use does seem to be linked to issues with body image. A systematic evaluation of 20 publications from 2016 indicated that photo-based behaviors, such as Instagram scrolling and posting images of yourself, were particularly problematic for promoting negative body images.

Besides reducing social media usage, the truth is, there may be ways to tailor your Instagram feed to improve your mood or at the very least prevent it from getting worse.

Here are somethings you can do:

1. Follow more pages or accounts that have positive messages and/or images.

2. Follow more pages or accounts that make you feel better about yourself.

3. Follow people who you can personally relate to. They might be the oldest or youngest sibling like you, or an only child, or maybe they are homeschooled like you, or maybe their parents got a divorce like yours, etc.

4. Follow people who may look similar to you. Maybe you both have curly hair, or freckles, or a similar fashion sense or even the same body type, etc.

5. Follow people who have the same interests as you. Maybe you both love to read, listen to the same artist, watch the same anime, the same sport or even the same hobby, etc.

6. Unfollow pages or accounts that make you feel bad about yourself or like you have to change who you are to fit in with them.

7 Unfollow gossip pages or accounts that come off really judgemental and negative.

8. Unfollow pages or celebrities who are always a part of negative drama.

9. Sign up for our Social Media course to better understand how to properly and safely use social media as well as how to keep you and others safe.

10. Do this exercise to help you improve your body confidence.